This invention relates to updating a layout of a page including content on a native application, and more specifically to updating the layout of the page through dynamic page templates.
Online systems select and present various content items to their users to encourage the users to interact with the online system. For example, an online system selects various content items for presentation to a user based on information associated with the user and actions performed by the user that are identified to the online system. The online system communicates the selected content items to a client device for presentation to the user and receives information from the client device describing the user's interactions with the content items.
An online system may organize content into a digital magazine and present the content to the user. The digital magazine may include multiple pages, with different pages including different content items having different layouts relative to each other. Organization of content items in different pages of a digital magazine affects user interaction with the digital magazine. For example, if multiple pages of a digital magazine present content items in similar layouts to each other, user interaction with the digital magazine may decrease. Hence, changing or updating layouts of content items relative to each other in different pages of a digital magazine may increase user interaction with the digital magazine or encourage continued interaction with the digital magazine by a user.
However, digital magazines generated by an online system are often presented using a native application executing on a client device. A native application is an application designed or optimized for execution by a particular operating system or a particular device. Modifying layouts of content items relative to each other in pages of a digital magazine presented by a native application may involve changes to instructions comprising the native application itself. Modifying instructions of the native application itself may be limited in frequency, which may limit modification of presentation of content items in pages of the digital magazine presented by the native application.